News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

About 90% of cancer deaths are due to metastases, when tumors spread to other vital organs, and a research group recently realized that it's not individual cells but rather distinct clusters of cancer cells that circulate and metastasize to other organs. As the group reports in AIP Advances, they set out to gain a better understanding of these circulating cancer cell clusters. The group's microfluidic device brings a new therapeutic strategy to the fight.

A wearable noninvasive device based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can be used to investigate blood volume and oxygenation patterns in freely diving marine mammals, according to a study publishing June 18 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by J. Chris McKnight of the University of St. Andrews, and colleagues. The results provide new insights into how voluntarily diving seals distribute blood and manage the oxygen supply to their brains and blubber.

New research publishing June 18 in the open-access journal, PLOS Biology, led by Dr. Lucy Taylor from the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology now reveals that homing pigeons fit in one extra wingbeat per second when flying in pairs compared to flying solo.

Findings show how to make confined bubbles develop uniformly, instead of in their usual scattershot way.

Researchers have filled two knowledge gaps: The vacuoles of plant cells can be excited and the TPC1 ion channel is involved in this process. The function of this channel, which is also found in humans, has been a mystery so far.

Human body communication (HBC) uses the human body to transmit power and data, much like the internet. Because it's a smaller and closed network, it has the benefit of being more secure and power efficient. In a recent study, a group of Japanese researchers used an equivalent circuit model to examine how different parameters affect HBC transmission characteristics.

The flow of traffic through our nation's highways and byways is meticulously mapped and studied, but less is known about how materials in cells travel. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri is challenging prior theories about how material leaves the inside of an E.coli cell. This discovery could have important implications for how we treat diseases.